U.S. Economy Lost 125,000 Jobs In June

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Nonfarm payroll employment fell by 125,000 in June, according to data released by the federal government today. Many of the jobs lost were because of a large drop in the number of temporary workers needed for the U.S. Census.

The number of jobs in the private sector increased by 83,000, due to modest gains in several industries. Private sector employment has risen by 593,000 so far in 2010, but in June was 7.9 million below its pre-recession level. The current unemployment rate is 9.5 percent.

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Over the month, federal government employment declined
sharply. The number of temporary Census 2010 workers dropped by 225,000, leaving 339,000 temporary workers on the Census payroll.

In the private sector, temporary help services employment
continued to grow over the month (+21,000). The industry has
added 379,000 jobs since September 2009. Employment also rose in management and technical consulting (+11,000) and in business
support services (+7,000) in June. Amusements, gambling, and
recreation gained 28,000 jobs, while transportation and
warehousing employment was up by 15,000.

Mining employment continued to trend up (+6,000), and the
industry has gained 56,000 jobs since October 2009. Employment
in manufacturing also continued to trend up in June (+9,000).
The industry has added 136,000 jobs so far this year. The
manufacturing workweek declined by half an hour in June, more
than offsetting an increase in May. Nonetheless, factory hours
remained 1.3 hours above their recent trough. Employment in
health care edged up in June (+9,000).

Construction employment fell by 22,000; specialty trade
contractors accounted for most of the decline. On net,
construction employment has shown little change over the last 4
months.

Average hourly earnings of all employees on private nonfarm
payrolls decreased by 2 cents in June to $22.53. Over the past
12 months, average hourly earnings have increased by 1.7 percent.
From May 2009 to May 2010, the Consumer Price Index for All Urban
Consumers (CPI-U) rose by 2.0 percent.

Turning to measures from the survey of households, the
unemployment rate edged down by 0.2 percentage point to 9.5
percent in June. Of the 14.6 million unemployed individuals,
about 6.8 million had been jobless for 27 weeks or more. In
comparison, 1.3 million persons were unemployed for 27 weeks or
longer when the recession began.

The labor force declined in June (-652,000). Following
increases earlier in the year, the labor force participation rate
has declined by half a percentage point over the last 2 months.

The employment-population ratio edged down to 58.5 percent
in June. Among the employed, there were 8.6 million individuals
working part time who preferred full-time work. The number of
such workers has fallen by 525,000 over the past 2 months.